Debating with Kandarohi
(By Tsem Rinpoche)
Dear students and friends,
Years back, I gave a teaching to a few Kecharians and friends. In the audience was a man I nick-named Kandarohi who had a few questions that I feel many people may also have… so I decided to put up a video of Kandarohi and myself debating. It was fun…It is through friendly and kind debate that we get answers to our questions sometimes, have more questions, get the answers to more questions – and come to well-thought about conclusions. Sometimes it leads to deeper rememberance of a subject also.
In this video, I was debating with Kandarohi briefly about habituation, responsibility and imprints. Kandarohi is a very intelligent man and picks up really quickly. I enjoyed talking with him while he was in Malaysia. He has since moved to USA to be with his partner and we are rarely in touch. I hope Kandarohi does get in touch in the future with Kechara and get into much more wonderful dharma work because he does love dharma and it’s logic.
Do read the transcript and listen to the debate, it has helped Kandarohi to understand the essence of these three important factors, I’m sure you will learn through his debate too. Let me know what you have learned from this debate. Enjoy and learn.
Tsem Rinpoche
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Transcript for Debating with Tsem Tulku Rinpoche
Rinpoche: Not taking responsibility: is that inherently negative or not? It’s a trick question so be careful. He’s a PhD holder so let’s see how smart he is. See, he’s thinking. He loves trick questions, it challenges his mind.
Kandarohi: Yes
Rinpoche: Surprising, deep voice! Okay, why?
Kandarohi: Well, when we do, when we do an action, either, I mean, we create the results of it whether we own it or we don’t own it.
Rinpoche: Okay.
Kandarohi: But if we’re confirmed, I mean, we must own our action, so, if we’re confronted or anything, “Oh no but I didn’t…”, and then, you know, other things result, you –
Rinpoche: Is, is habitual, is there a difference between habitual irresponsibility and irresponsibility?
Kandarohi: No because it goes in a cycle and then it comes back and reinforces, it becomes habituation.
Rinpoche: So if you don’t know something and you’re irresponsible, it’s the same as you know it and it’s habitual, correct?
Kandarohi: Yes.
Rinpoche: Incorrect. So if you’ve been transported to somewhere in Africa, and you’ve been living in a hut, and you’re supposed to get the water from the river 50 kilometers away, you didn’t do that, you didn’t know you had to do that, because you’re looking for the faucet, and then they say you’re irresponsible, are you? Do you collect the karma of being irresponsible?
Kandarohi: No, you have to –
Rinpoche: Do you collect the karma of being irresponsible, means pushing your way on someone else and letting other people do something for you that you’re supposed to do and you don’t care about the pain it creates them, maybe double the work or double the time. So, unknowing irresponsibility and habitual irresponsibility, is there a difference?
Kandarohi: Well, if you break a law, you suffer the consequences whether you know or you didn’t know. You still have to –
Rinpoche: No. Unknowing irresponsibility and knowing, habitual irresponsibility, is there a difference?
(Off-camera, Kandarohi nods)
Rinpoche: Yes, what is the difference?
Kandarohi: Because you were never, you were never taught what is right or wrong.
Rinpoche: Very good. And the other one is? Habitual irresponsibility?
Kandarohi: You know, you do it again.
Rinpoche: Correct. And habitual irresponsibility and unknowing irresponsibility is both harmful to the receiver. It is both harmful. Which one would be more severe?
Kandarohi: The knowing, not the other one.
Rinpoche: And why is habitual irresponsibility and unknowing irresponsible negative? Why does it incur negative result? Why?
Kandarohi: Because it still causes harm.
Rinpoche: Correct. Harm on what basis?
Kandarohi: On the basis of a person you harm.
Rinpoche: On the basis of a person who can feel harm.
Kandarohi: Yes.
Rinpoche: Correct. So, therefore, there’s a difference between habitual irresponsibility and unknowing irresponsibility, correct? And it has negative karmic repercussions, correct? It has negative repercussions on what basis?
Kandarohi: And the basis the other person is able to be harmed.
Rinpoche: Correct, another being is able to be harmed. If there is not another being that can be harmed, and it’s habitual or unknowing irresponsibility, is there still negative karma?
Kandarohi: No.
Rinpoche: Everybody agree? Who agrees, raise your hand. Who doesn’t agree, raise your hand. Some of you don’t have hands. Okay. Because both, everybody’s like (looking around, blinking). My conclusion is some of you don’t have hands. What was the question? I forgot. What was the question? I forgot. You forgot too!
Kandarohi: I mean, if there is no object to be harmed…
Rinpoche: There is no receiver of the object of our irresponsibility, is there still negative karma accrued from being irresponsible? Either intentional or unintentional? Knowing or unknowing, sorry. Is there still negative karma that arises from that?
Kandarohi: Yes.
Rinpoche: But you said no.
Kandarohi: I’ve changed my mind, upon reflection.
Rinpoche: Upon reflection. Do you change your hairstyle upon reflection every year?
Kandarohi: No.
Rinpoche: Some things you don’t reflect, okay. We like your hair. Om Vajrasattva Hum. Tell me the difference: how is it when there is no recipient of harm but there’s irresponsibility, there is still negative karma that’s accrued? How?
Kandarohi: Because you created the action, then you have to suffer the results.
Rinpoche: But there’s no one to receive that action, so how do you have to suffer? So if I slap you or if I slap the curtain, the karma is the same?
Kandarohi: But you’re, but your….
Rinpoche: My motivation is to hurt a curtain?
Kandarohi: No, you reinforce the imprint in your mind.
Rinpoche: What’s the imprint in my mind, to hurt curtains?
Kandarohi: To let your anger out.
Rinpoche: Okay. So if I slap a curtain –
Kandarohi: As…and if there’s an environmental, if a person’s standing there, you might just, it might arise again.
Rinpoche: Excellent. Now therefore, whether there’s an obvious, living, conscious, recipient – I’m not talking about a plant – a conscious recipient that can feel pain, and you are irresponsible to them, either it’s intentional or not, there’s still karma, correct? (Kandarohi nods) But if there’s not a living recipient and you’re still irresponsible, you’re still irresponsible, you still collect negative karma, correct? Why? Because who are you harming now?
Kandarohi: Self.
Rinpoche: That’s right. How do you harm yourself when there’s no outer recipient of your irresponsibility? How do you harm yourself?
Kandarohi: Because you reinforce in your mind.
Rinpoche: What are you reinforcing?
Kandarohi: The imprint.
Rinpoche: Okay. So, if you reinforce the imprints in your mind, why is that negative? Why is that harmful?
Kandarohi: Because if the right environmental cause comes along, you’ll react in that way…
Rinpoche: Where there… that’s right. So therefore, if we’re irresponsible, whether it is knowing or unknowing, there is still karmic repercussions. Which one will be heavier?
Kandarohi: Knowing
Rinpoche: Why is knowing heavier?
Kandarohi: Because of your intention.
Rinpoche: What are the two factors that arise from that? You’ve mentioned it already. It’s negative because A and B. Only 2 factors.
Kandarohi: Your motivation?
Rinpoche: No. The person that is receiving the harm and your reinforcement that when you’re reinforced, you’ll harm more in the future. You understand? So therefore, knowing, intentional irresponsibility is harmful. Unknowing, unintentional irresponsibility is always harmful. Why? Because unknowing will lead to knowing, if it is not stopped. So a person who is irresponsible and creates harm, setbacks, not following deadlines, not falling in with other people and it’s harming them – when it harms them, when it harms them, and it’s intentional, that creates negative karma, correct? So therefore if a person views an irresponsible person in a negative way, is that subjective or objective?
Kandarohi: Subjective.
Rinpoche: Why is that subjective? The person’s irresponsible.
Kandarohi: But you don’t know, I mean, you haven’t look deeper, you don’t know…
Rinpoche: Okay, we hang around with that person, go out with them for a year…
Kandarohi: Isn’t that…you’re imputing again?
Rinpoche: Yes. At my level, I have only evidence to impute on, but from the side of…for the sake of argument, from the person’s side that’s irresponsible, do they not create a greater karma because they allow other people to increase their imputation? So even if they do nothing and they just sit there and look pretty, do they not harm people around them? So therefore, a person who has vows to be responsible, and they’re not responsible and they break their vows just by not doing anything is very harmful. It’s the biggest harm. Why? They allow other people to increase their imputations and they’re holding their negative views and they don’t let them practice. That’s why people who break their vows, they’re expelled from the monastery. Do you understand?
Kandarohi: Yes.
Rinpoche: That’s how we learn in the monasteries. We interact and we talk. We examine. We don’t just sit and lecture. We actually challenge and think. Sometimes we will take this side, sometimes we will take this side, sometimes we take this side; it’s called debate. We have to challenge. Why? When you challenge and you debate it out just like Kandarohi and I just did, when you have come to a clear understanding, then from that is born faith. From faith comes practice and transformation. Practice is application of what you have learnt, comes transformation. And the transformation will be firm and strong and irrevocable, cannot go backwards, when it’s based on sound observation and knowledge. That’s exactly how we do it in the monasteries. Much more complicated of course, and very fast. Very, very fast that you have to go back and forth, back and forth.
Transcribed by Joey Wong
Proofread by Elena Khong
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So much we can learn from reading this debate, one of the things I take with me is that it is not ok to let our anger manifest out which in turn habituates us to anger. When that happens over and over again on day we will manifest our anger when a person is with us and chances us we will manifest that anger out to them.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for sharing the short video showing Rinpoche and Kandarohi debating about the difference between habitual irresponsibility and knowing irresponsibility. This debate is a good exercise for our mind to think deeper logically about being irresponsibility whether we do it intentionally or other wise. When we further convince ourselves with more facts, more examples and covering all angles of any aspect in one Dharma topic, we can easily walk the talk through our own actions and easily convince others with logical facts when someone challenge us in any of our Dharma discussion.
This video has opened up my mind again and whether we harm any sentient being or harm ourselves intentionally or we are not aware of, definitely karma will come back to us. Let us be more mindful with our body, speech and mind.
Thank you Rinpoche!
With folded hands,
kin hoe
Thank you Rinpoche’s sharing. The topic let me learn that unintentional irresponsible is always harmful because unknowing will lead to knowing, if it is not stopped. a person who is irresponsible will creates harm. So never underestimate unintentional irresponsibility actions from us so that we will not create the cause to harm other.
這是一個非常具有挑戰性和有趣的对話，這是一個很多事物值得思考和自我反省。我一直以為收到的惡業，從不負責任，但從來沒有真正理解到這種程度，不負責任比不知情的不負責任重得多。我會再用心重觀看，觀察，体会其中含義。感谢仁波切的视频分享及Joey 和 Elena 清晰的文字記錄.
I hope Kandarohi gets in touch with Kechara again, he is indeed an intelligent man who can think on his feet.
This debate was very insightful for me, I was able to understand more about knowing and unknowing irresponsibilities. I need to be more conscientious of my work and give people around me more work by making them double check everything I do. I am very much guilty of that.
This debate also made me examine my actions more carefully, as I could be collecting heavy negative karma unknowingly by simply doing nothing! Goodness gracious!
Thanks Joey and Elena for transcribing this.
Wow, this is a very challenging and interesting debate, i had to read and listen to it many times to even extract a small understanding of it. It’s a lot to think about and reflect on. I had always thought you do receive negative karma from being irresponsible but never really understood it to this extent and i thought knowing irresponsibility was much heavier than unknowing irresponsibility.
I really like the part where i learnt that being irresponsible even when there is no living recipient around you still can collect negative karma by hurting yourself, that you reinforce the imprint in your mind, when the right situation comes along you would react in that way. I never thought about it that way but then again what you get good practice out of something you get really good at it, in turn you end up hurting more people than just yourself by practicing to be irresponsible unintentionally. “The person that is receiving the harm and your reinforcement that when you’re reinforced, you’ll harm more in the future.”
“Knowing, intentional irresponsibility is harmful. Unknowing, unintentional irresponsibility is always harmful. Why? Because unknowing will lead to knowing, if it is not stopped.” This made me think about the dharma and why we are so lucky to receive dharma teachings from Rinpoche. Bringing us into deeper thoughts and reflecting upon our actions, because we wouldn’t know if our actions are hurting others or not and even if we did why is it bad. Just like our mothers and fathers teach us from right and wrong. Doesn’t matter being irresponsible intentionally or not has a difference, if you continue to practice it it ends up hurting others and most importantly ourselves.
I also really enjoyed the fact that I learnt that by being irresponsible or breaking your vows it creates the negative karma of increasing another’s person’s imputations by holding negative views of me being iressponsible. It really made me think deeper into my actions, i didn’t think about it that way and the negative effects it has on other people and how bad the negative karma of being irresponsible creates.
I hope what I learnt from this is correect or makes sense. I really enjoyed reading and listening to this debate. If i remember correectly i was at this teaching when Rinpoche and Kandarohi had this debate but it was too fast and too heavy for me to pick up and understand at that time, im thankful for Rinpoche putting this up to share with us this debate and hope i picked up the right points from it,
I hope Rinpoche is well. Take care.
Hopefully I wouldn’t be any more irresponsible than I am now. Hehe.
I remember this! Kandarohi was gooood… he did really well debating with Rinpoche. I remembered Rinpoche was very quick asking him questions and he was calm and answered not through guessing but through really thinking and using logic to track back what Rinpoche has taught. Of course Rinpoche made it all fun and light as well. However, it was really interesting to witness this debate and Rinpoche has said many times to us Kandarohi is very intelligent and high in EQ. He would have been an excellent writer if he was still with us. Hope one day his path will cross ours again.
The sharing session made me think a lot. Not that easy to understand, but i will re-watch and re-watch again.
Thank You Rinpoche. 🙂
Best Regards : Erickksiow
Ah yes, the good ole days at Damekhang or sometimes referred to as the yellow house.
I hope Kandarohi is well and doing OK in USA. He would have gained more if he stayed in Malaysia.
Morale of the story: Take responsibility and never say I don’t know – learn. Responsibility for oneself and others.
Thank you so much for the video and the transcript. Thank you Joey and Elena.
It makes me understand more about how clear understanding comes strong faith, and practice and transformation. I once have question on: after you understand something will the understanding last forever, for sometimes only or will revert back?…Now I know when our understanding based on sound observation and knowledge, especially we challenge the thought with ourself or others, then it will be firm.
I thank Rinpoche for showing us the logic and value behind the tradition of debating. And it shows as well the difference with a Guru and without a Guru and the need to have a Guru not just scripture in our spiritual journey to get significant result.
It reminds me about the importance of holding vows and the harm not doing anything. And the reinforcement of negative imprint in a simple yet profound way. It’s definitely a superb teaching to listen to!
I learnt something really important today! Looks like I’m short tempered because of myself and my habits…which I seem to reinforce again and again…looks like I’m really low on good karma… need to change for d better. Thank you Rinpoche!
Dear Rinpoche,
thank you so much for sharing this post and the video of the debate.
Thanks also to Joey for the transcription and Elena for proof-reading.
It’s a deep teaching for me. I had to read it a few times.
“Knowing, intentional irresponsibility is harmful. Unknowing, unintentional irresponsibility is always harmful… a person who has vows to be responsible, and they’re not responsible and they break their vows just by not doing anything is very harmful. It’s the biggest harm. Why? They allow other people to increase their imputations and they’re holding their negative views and they don’t let them practice.”.
All of THAT must zap through our brain synapses for EVERYTHING we say and do. How often do we say or do something only to regret it right after the act? How often more do we do something without realising that it was wrong?
A scary but necessary thing to keep in mind and work on.
Sean in Shanghai
This is awesome! To always exercise and train our minds to think. I’ve always have an ignorance and lazy mind that does not like to think much. I’ve always wanting and thinking of changing this quality of mine, but now I’ve decided to do something with it, to transform it. This is the least I can do for myself, by transforming the mind to be a better one… I shall as well learn to be responsible of my thoughts and actions… _/\_
Felt like it was yesterday when we were at kechara House 1 🙂 . The monasteries really do debates like this to help with the understanding. Kandarohi really had a lot of dharmic seeds.
Thank you Rinpoche for this teaching and Joey and Elena for your transcribing and proofing works.
With this teaching, now I come to understand that ACTUALLY both habiitual irresponsibility and unknowing irresponsibility are both harmful and that even if the object that we cause harm is liveless, we still create negative karma.
Irresponsibility causes harm to both the receivers and ourselves. Now I feel that things in life can be so fine that unknowingly we can easily create negative karma.
Without teachings, we wouldnt understand and hence we will continue to do what we thought is right/wrong.
Responsibility is something that exists in all parts of our daily lives, from house to work. I think this is a very meaningful article to be posted here.
Awesome debate! I cannot catch up with the profound meaning until I read over the transcript. Thank you Rinpoche, Kandarohi, Joey and Elena. The video together with the transcript makes it clearer about the effects of karma, and our responsibility when we hold vows especially when we do nothing about it.
I have watched this before and it is always good to refresh 🙂 I thank Joey for transcribing and Elena for proofreading it.
I pray that Kandarohi will soon reconnect with Kechara again…
Ha, apparently, Zahir Sutarwala = Kandarohi and he is friend with a few of Kecharians 🙂